Tag Archives: Food

I know, a real dearth of food and garden stuff lately. This morning when I got back up after my few hours of sleep, it was 35 degrees and rainy outside. Brrr. Where’s my spring?

It’s also that time of the year when the whirlpool of month end and previous year end paperwork/filings/activities are at full blast, which leaves only a little time for the other things I like to do. Since it’s still spitting rain and not going to warm up outside past 50 or so, and everyone is gone, leaving just me and the animals, it’s a perfect day to blast through as much of this stuff as humanly possible.

We will return to the goodies eventually – next week, we will be building more frames and mixing the soil to fill them, getting seeds started, and in general working on more prep for the garden. For some reason, I don’t give as much love to the winter garden as the summer. It may be because half the stuff I cannot/will not eat (lettuces for the former, brussels sprouts for the latter), and this year it may be because I hate the plants we picked up from Home Depot to transplant and get us kickstarted (that would be the broccoli, which has been a complete loser, in my opinion – we’ll be starting some anew from seed). The garlic is going gangbusters, though. I just hope it doesn’t rot in the ground from the weird rains we’ve been having.

The spring and summer gardens should be huge, given all the seed we have. In the past two days, we’ve received shipments of worm castings, chicken manure, and a batch of tomato and pepper seed varieties we’re going to try. We’re awaiting the arrival of some worms and a will have a bin for our wormy friends to do some composting in addition to the regular compost pile we have. There are also more seeds en route because – and there’s no other way to put it – I must be insane.

We still need to:

– find a permanent place for the asparagus.

– build a coop for the upcoming chick parade, with laying boxes.

– get the greenhouse up, but only after the latest five loads of topsoil that isn’t really topsoil is spread – it’s swamp muck more than topsoil, and completely unlike the nice loads we got last time from this very same place. Since they’re not entirely as consistent as we’d like, as they apparently do not go to the same pit on a load to load basis, we will simply find another supplier. Topsoil ain’t exactly cheap, and since we need a lot of it around here to top off our sand and fill various areas, it makes no sense to use a provider who cannot perform to the standards we need.

– figure out which trees we will plant where out front when it does warm up into spring.

– figure out where we’ll put the fences around the huge garden area we’ll have to keep the bunnies from thinking it’s a free lunch around here.

– put up some solar-powered exterior lights on the corner of the barn.

– pick up some more coastal hay for mulching and moisture control as I continue my quest to extend our grassy area out front.

– get the pasturegrass started on the west side of the property, as a place for the rolling coop and an area where we can eventually cut our own hay.

– put together a menu that will help keep cholesterol ranges in the norm. Mom’s latest bloodwork came back with a sky high count, my sister’s is also high, and I’m sure now that I’m eating again, mine has gone back up to my BC levels. In our family’s case, it’s more hereditary than dietary (although diet of course contributes), so there are limits to what diet alone can do – that’s why there are drugs for that and why we’ll probably all be on them at some point. I was, until the first surgery, in fact.

– various other things too numerous to mention, but which all fit right in with our homestead theme.

Today has been all about food. Well, that and getting the dogs shaved and bathed. That, and getting the Princess wiped down and brushed. And watching football. But it has been a day full of cooking for me, although I was a bit behind schedule due to the dog-bathing part.

We begin our tour with a hunka hunka nice looking buffalo.

Salt, pepper, garlic, and in it went to a pan to sear. After nicely browning on all sides, it went into the oven in a bath of beef broth with some onion and garlic as companions.

After that, it was time to start the soup. I had roasted a couple of butternut squash, and started some onion, garlic, and carrot in a pot. Some chicken broth, a couple of diced potatoes, the innards of the squash, and some spices, and it turned into something like this.

All of that was stirred together and then allowed to simmer while I began the next item on my culinary agenda: guacamole. Here, our model Aubrey demonstrates the functionality of that fabulous green appetizer.

Meanwhile, those of us still suffering from a root canal went on to the creation of another yummy item.

The soup was coming along nicely, and was almost ready for the immersion blender.

Two other parties chimed in with their own orders.

Often, they don’t know exactly what they want, but they know you might have it.

The soup was ready, so I blended it and Mom kindly jarred it for me.

I asked that she do that because I was moving along on the bread front.

I also threw together some tarragon-pickled mushrooms and onions for Aubrey, who was starving because she insists on doing this “total carb” thing instead of net carbs since she wants to drop some weight, but hey, who am I to say anything about peoples’ strange ideas? I moved along to the roast, pulling it out of the bath it had been in for about three hours.

The braising liquid, to which carrots, onions, and potatoes had been added, was thickened a bit to give us a hearty backdrop for the roast.

We also had some roasted zucchini with parm-reg.

And we added the final touch of our lovely focaccia.

Besides the Packers losing a game the Giants seemed better prepared to play, a very enjoyable day. Just to prove I am certifiably insane, I also ordered more seed today, because the very best thing to do when you think maybe you’re getting too close to that gardening mania line is to just boldly step right over it.

It has been cold, dark, and gloomy today, and our chance of snow flurries has dropped down to almost nothing for tomorrow evening. Since we don’t get the thrill of that chance, it’s time to focus on the job ahead and the fun that goes with it: seed sorting and selection.

That may seem like a lot of seeds. In fact, I think it probably is. There are maybe a dozen varieties of tomatoes, eight peppers, squashes, onions, herbs, corn, beans, melons, cucumbers, and just about anything else you’d find in a typical visit to your pantry and fridge. The fun now is determining how to lay out our frames, what to plant where, and where to build the trellises for the climbers. We still have a bit of time before our last frost date, and since things tend to germinate very quickly and spring up ready for transplanting, still some time before the seedling flats need to be started. We’re looking forward to quite a lot of canning, pickling, and freezing this year. With all the work done on the soil and the effort going into the frames, hopefully this year’s harvest will be leaps and bounds above last year’s meager and short-season pickings.

We received several orders this week of meat packed and shipped from elsewhere. One of the shippers used dry ice instead of cold packs. You know what that means.

Have you ever had one of those days, where you have an idea that at the time seems absolutely brilliant, so you dive into it, trying to get reality to match what’s in your head, only to find that it isn’t as simple or obtainable as you imagined and in fact takes you veering along the edge of the cliff of sanity and you know you’re going to plunge off the side into spectacularly horrible defeat?

So have I. But this is not one of those times. Lucky you.

In my life BC (that’s before cancer, for those of you unfamiliar with the history here and who have not perused some of the more gruesome photos in my collection), I watched the Food Network quite a bit. By “quite a bit” I mean that if I was interested in having the television on and wasn’t watching a movie for the billionth time, generally speaking the screen had FN on it. Back in those days, the programming, while it could be uneven, was generally not full of the spastic, heavily caricatured “personalities” it features now, and that’s one of the primary reasons I hardly ever watch it currently. I know Emeril can be annoying as hell, but we have to give credit where it’s due: the man obviously loves to cook and he just as obviously loves food. Out of all his catchphrases, “pork fat rules” is probably the most apt right here, right now.

Because there’s something about pork, isn’t there? It’s versatile in ways that chicken is not. Consider this: there are thousands of different ways to prepare chicken. When you’re a broke college student also working full time, or a slave in ISP hell not making a ton of money, chicken can be stretched out to make eating more pleasant than the standard ramen/mac and cheese duo. And beef – grassfed, organic beef especially: well, there’s nothing like a medium rare ribye off the grill, or a braised roast, or even just a nice juicy hamburger to get you powered through your day.

Pork could be in an altogether separate class. In fact, I will go so far as to say that Homer was on to something. Don’t get me wrong. I love the beef and buffalo and chicken and fish and shrimp and turkey. When I put 40 pounds or so of ribs on the smoker, though, they are pork spare ribs. When I make barbeque, it’s pulled pork via a Boston butt. During the holidays, you can always find ham on the table or in the fridge here. Bone-in pork chops, fried and then topped with gravy, served alongside fried okra, mashed potatoes and biscuits with some sweet tea on the side? Southern heaven.

But the defining moment for pork, to me, is bacon. What else can you eat alone as part of a meal, or include as part of a trio singing in harmony in a BLT? What else can be wrapped around so many other things – steak, shrimp, asparagus – to take them to a higher level than they could ever reach on their own? What else can you render as a base for another dish and then turn right around and sprinkle over that same dish in a cloudburst of porcine goodness that adds just the right note?

That was the thinking I had when I decided to cure and smoke my own bacon. That, and the “wouldn’t it be cool to try this” line of thought. Both work equally well. As it turns out, the process is much less involved than people think.

Step one, as linked above, was the curing phase. Get the cure mixed, slather it on, stick the belly in the fridge for a week or so. Simple. Once that phase is over, pull it out, rinse it thoroughly, pat it dry, and back it goes in the fridge for a day.

The underside is dry and we’re ready to go on the smoker.

I smoked this batch over hickory for about three hours or so. When it had reached a temperature of 150F, I pulled it out. Next step: trimming the skin from the belly.

The skin could be saved, I suppose, to flavor soups and such, but when I looked at this belly, I knew there would be scraps and pieces and fat left for that purpose, so I tossed the skin. Without its skin, and from the side, it now looked like this.

Everyone knows that there must be a tasting. The two outside pieces are the ends that were directly exposed to the smoke. They are naturally darker than the slices from the interior.

It fried up nicely.

It tasted like: bacon. Pure, unadulterated porky goodness. I sliced up the remainder for packaging. I could have tossed the bellies in the freezer for a bit and then used the handy slicer the fam gave to me, but I had my sharp knife and the time, so I went ahead with that job.

Ready for packaging and distribution.

Packed, labeled, and ready for the freezer – or, in the case of the pack on the left, ready to go to my aunt and uncle’s place for them to enjoy. The smaller bags on the right are scraps and fats for soups, flavoring, and rendering when needed.

Overall, from an eight pound belly with the skin on, I wound up with five pounds of bacon, which is about what I expected to get. On a price per pound basis, this batch ran $7.20. That is at or lower than bacon by the pound in the store, since most of the packages now come in 12 ounce packs rather than full pounds.

Was is worth it? Absolutely. I know where this belly came from. I know exactly what was in the cure and at what ratios, how it was handled, and how it was smoked. The active work time from an overall standpoint is minimal, and the cost is about the same as me climbing into my car and going to the store.

Would I change anything? Next time, I think I will change the cure a bit. The fam likes sweeter bacon, and it was difficult to taste the maple and brown sugar in the cure this time, so that needs to change. I also think an extra day in the cure would be a good idea.

If you’re considering doing this, but don’t know where to get pork belly with the skin on, head over to Niman Ranch and try them. I’ve ordered from them in the past and used them for this belly and the fat. They’re excellent.

Tonight’s dinner plan was to roast a chicken (salt, pepper, ginger, fresh orange, onion) for dinner. When I started peeling it out of its wrapper, it smelled like a three week old chicken left in hundred degree heat after a skunk had sprayed it. In other words: no chicken tonight. Fortunately, there was cheesy potato vegetable chowder to be had on this gloomy, rainy evening.

My seed packets are spread out on the table, with the exception of the packets of the sungold tomato seed, which I can’t lay my hands on this instant. I need to get some flats started in the garage under the heat and grow lights, in an area which will also house some special guests for several weeks: chicks. Yes, we will have a few chickens when all is said and done, and they’ll be here in mid February to take up residence with the rest of the zoo.

This afternoon, we watched the Packers beat the Seahawks in a near blizzard. This evening, we watched the Jaguars put up a valiant fight against the Patriots. They played much better than I thought they would, and really, after watching the Patriots in a couple of close games this season, I think the Jags put up a bigger fight than the Colts and the Ravens did – the game was much closer than the 11 point difference in the score.

And what do you need in order to watch a couple of playoff games? Food!

Guacamole: this batch was perfect. Astonishingly perfect. I’ll have to remember the ratios next time. I even ate some myself. We had corn tortillas made from organic corn with this. I had a few chips, too, but I think I could just eat this with a fork and be as happy.

Shrimp! Boiled with Old Bay, and lots of that.

Beef! A big pile of it. Grilled, and seasoned only with salt, peper, and garlic.

That was because half of it was ordered from a place in Missouri offering grassfed beef. And I think this is even better than the last batch of beef we found from a local place – sweeter, more fragrant, if you can apply that sort of terminology to beef.

I also made another batch of rolls (there are a grand total of three left), we had corn on the cob, and we had a cheese sauce for the broccoli. I just realized as I was uploading these images that we completely neglected to make any baked potatoes. Not that anyone missed them, since we stuffed ourselves with everything else.

So we watched the Jags hang with the Patriots for awhile, enjoyed our food and good company, and overall had a grand evening. Now to start work on the menu for the conference championship games…

That’s what you do with geeks who are low on the totem pole. Those of us who worked back in the day for a very, very large, and very, very well known ISP but managed to escape know this well.

Know what else you keep in the dark and feed (pasteurized, inoculated) crap? That’s right.

One of my gifts for the holiday. The instructions there say not to open the kit prior to the date on the box. That was the 25th, as is happened, the very day it was given to me. Handy.

Not much to look at, is it? I’d always thought it would be cool to grow our own mushrooms. We probably go through more of them than the average family, and being able to harvest them when we want or as we need always seemed rather nifty.

This is the base, which was moist and looked a bit like what you’d find in the bottom of a rabbit cage. But my friends, it smelled rich and loamy, the way I dream the soil outside for my gardening areas would smell were it something other than what mostly resembles beach sand.

On top of the base, in a separate package, was a bag of dry peat. The instructions said to pour a specific amount of water into this, mix it, and let it sit. So I did, for once, follow the instructions.

After allowing it to sit, then mixing it up well by hand, I had another batch of moist, rich material. Finally, the instructions said to spread this new moist material on the base, and then give it a little raking with a fork.

The raking roughs up the surface so the mushrooms can take hold – akin to the way a patch of ground needs to be prepared for grass seed, really.

After doing all this, the box, as is, goes into a cool, dark place. After a week or so, the mushrooms are supposed to begin germinating, and after a few weeks, they should be large mature enough to harvest. Do we have any germinating mushrooms in my closet, ready to burst out and consume the populations of small towns?

For a long time now, I’ve wanted to cure my own bacon. A lot of that desire came well before I lost the ability to consume bacon in amounts approaching a regular person’s consumption of it, but I can still gnaw on a small piece or two while everyone is chowing down like there is no tomorrow on a plate of fried porky goodness.

Finally, in the spirit of the new year and getting things done, here we go. The first thing we need is a decent sized piece of pork belly, skin on.

Check.

Next, the cure – and not the Robert Smith kind. Basic: salt, pink salt, brown sugar, and maple syrup.

Is this not going to make some kickass bacon? Just look at it. You can tell its potential by a single glance, where this belly longs to be made into something even more glorious it is right now.

I had big, big plans for the two acorn squash I had picked up at the store: Baked, stuffed with a wild rice mix, and served as a side to a couple of seared balsamic-glazed, bone-in pork chops.

Sometimes things just don’t work out that way. The menu I’m saving for another day. The squash, though, had to be dealt with before they melted into goo on the countertop. That would have taken awhile, but better to address that sooner (when the squash would still be tasty) rather than later (when there would be a rather icky cleanup duty involved).

First things first: gather the ingredients. I decided a honey-soy glaze would work.

Cut into rings and remove the seeds. Since we are the composting types, the innards were saved for that.

Off they go to a baking sheet, awaiting their fate. Since they look like gears, it was amusing to play with the rings on the sheet, interlocking them.

Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Into the oven they go. Every so often, I brushed them with a mixture of honey, soy, ginger, salt, pepper, and lime juice. I also stepped outside to watch the approach of the first cold front that was to bring the deeper cold front a day or so later.

What a good dog, staying in the doorway as he was told! He’s a handsome devil, too.

The squash is tender and ready for anyone who wants it. I did. Delicious.